Pontic–Caspian steppe

The steppe extends roughly from the Dniepr to the Ural or 30° to 55° east longitude, and from the Black Sea and the Caucasus in the south to the temperate forest and taiga in the north, or 45° to 55° north latitude.

The Pontic–Caspian steppe is the vast steppeland stretching from the northern shores of the Black Sea (called Euxeinos Pontos [Εὔξεινος Πόντος] in antiquity) as far east as the Caspian Sea, from Moldova and western Ukraine across the Southern Federal District and the Volga Federal District of Russia to western Kazakhstan, forming part of the larger Eurasian steppe, adjacent to the Kazakh steppe to the east. It is a part of the Palearctic temperate grasslands, savannas, and shrublands ecoregion of the temperate grasslands, savannas, and shrublands biome.

The area corresponds to Cimmeria, Scythia, and Sarmatia of classical antiquity. Across several millennia the steppe was used by numerous tribes of nomadic horsemen, many of which went on to conquer lands in the settled regions of Europe and in western and southern Asia.

The term Ponto-Caspian region is used in biogeography for plants and animals of these steppes, and animals from the Black, Caspian, and Azov seas. Genetic research has identified this region as the most probable place where horses were first domesticated.^[1]

According to the dominant Kurgan hypothesis in Indo-European studies, the Pontic–Caspian steppe was the homeland of the speakers of the Proto-Indo-European language, and these same speakers were the original domesticators of the horse.^[2]

Geography and ecology

The Pontic steppe covers an area of 994,000 square kilometres (384,000 sq mi), extending from eastern Romania across southern Moldova, Ukraine, Russia and northwestern Kazakhstan to the Ural Mountains. The Pontic steppe is bounded by the East European forest-steppe to the north, a transitional zone of mixed grasslands and temperate broadleaf and mixed forests.

To the south, the Pontic steppe extends to the Black Sea, except the Crimean and western Caucasus mountains' border with the sea, where the Crimean Submediterranean forest complex defines the southern edge of the steppes. The steppe extends to the western shore of the Caspian Sea in the Dagestan region of Russia, but the drier Caspian lowland desert lies between the Pontic steppe and the northwestern and northern shores of the Caspian. The Kazakh Steppe bounds the Pontic steppe on the southeast.

The Ponto-Caspian seas are the remains of the Turgai Sea, an extension of the Paratethys which extended south and east of the Urals and covering much of today's West Siberian Plain in the Mesozoic and Cenozoic.

Prehistoric cultures

• Linear Pottery culture 5500–4500 BC
• Cucuteni-Trypillian culture 5300–2600 BC
• Sredny Stog culture 4500–3500 BC
• Yamna/Kurgan culture 3500–2300 BC
• Catacomb culture 3000–2200 BC
• Srubna culture 1600–1200 BC
• Novocherkassk culture 900–650 BC

Historical peoples and nations

• Cimmerians 12th–7th centuries BC
• Scythians 8th–4th centuries BC
• Sarmatians 5th century BC – 5th century AD
• Ostrogoths 3rd–6th centuries
• Bulgars (Onogurs) 4th–7th century^[3]
• Huns 4th–8th centuries
• Alans 5th–11th centuries
• Eurasian Avars 6th–8th centuries
• Göktürks 6th–8th centuries
• Sabirs 6th–8th centuries
• Khazars 6th–11th centuries
• Pechenegs 8th–11th centuries
• Kipchaks and Cumans 11th–13th centuries
• Golden Horde 13th–15th centuries
• Cossacks, Kalmyks, Crimean Khanate, Volga Tatars, Nogais and other Turkic states and tribes 15th–18th centuries
• Pontic Greeks and Caucasus Greeks 15th–19th centuries
• Russian Empire 18th–20th centuries
• Soviet Union 20th century
• Moldova, Kazakhstan, Russian Federation, Ukraine 20th–21st centuries

See also

• Eurasian Steppe
• Black Sea-Caspian Steppe
• Kurgan hypothesis
• Ukrainian stone stela
• Temperate grasslands, savannas, and shrublands
• Late Glacial Maximum
• Haplogroup R1a1 (Y-DNA)
• Haplogroup R1b1 (Y-DNA)
• Tarim mummies

References

External links

Wikimedia Commons has media related to Eurasian Steppe.

• "Pontic steppe". Terrestrial Ecoregions. World Wildlife Fund. 
• Google maps: Pontic-Caspian steppe